Jack Roush is a survivor.

His competitors in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series have always known that. Now everyone else does, too.

Jack Roush is recovering after a plane crash that nearly took his life.(AP)

Colleagues and rivals watched Roush enter NASCAR's top series in 1989 with a young, refurbished driver in Mark Martin and promptly take on the sport's top teams.

And he has been a winner ever since, from that magical 1991 season when Martin nearly upset perennial champion Dale Earnhardt to now, when he has shaken off a disappointing season to place all four of his Winston Cup drivers in championship contention.

Now we know Roush is a survivor off the track as well.

After crashing a private plane into a lake in Troy, Ala., on his 60th birthday last week, Roush was left fighting for his life. The first 24 hours were touch and go, the next 24 critical.

But despite suffering a shattered leg and a closed head injury and being submerged under water for several minutes, it now looks like Jack Roush will survive his brush with death. He faces a long recovery, but he is expected to make it all the way back.

"If there is anybody who can survive and come through it 100 percent, it's Jack," Roush Racing driver Jeff Burton says. "He's a tough S.O.B and he'll figure out how to do it."

And when he's well enough to return to the racetrack, he will do so with full force.

"Then we've got a man in a cast who'll be out here on a golf car," Roush Racing president Geoff Smith says with a laugh.

Thanks to the miracle worker who saved his life -- ex-Marine Larry Hicks -- Roush will be back.

Until then, his powerful race teams will cope without him. And odds are they won't skip a beat.

Why?

Because they are survivors, too, just like their boss.

Some found it odd that Roush's four drivers returned to practice at Talladega Superspeedway Saturday morning, not knowing if their car owner was going to live or die.

But strange as it sounds, that's what racers do. That's why Richard Childress Racing and Dale Earnhardt Inc. returned to action just one week after the most traumatic death NASCAR has ever faced.

That's why Burton, Martin and Co. went about their business while Roush was on life support in an Alabama hospital. That's what they do, and that's what their boss wanted them to do.

"The reason that we are here is because of Jack," Burton said. "I don't think people realize that everything he has he built and it started from racing. Jack's brother told Mark (Martin) and I that Jack would be mad if we didn't get up and go do our deal. We have to do that because that's what Jack would want us to do."

"If I know Jack, he'd be upset if we didn't get down to business and go on with racing as hard as we can," said Matt Kenseth, who is locked in a tight championship race with points leader Sterling Marlin.

So Burton, Martin, Kenseth and young Kurt Busch went about their business at Talladega and, as usual, they did it with success. Though Martin and Kenseth were swept into a 24-car pileup, Busch and Burton both finished in the top 10, with Busch making a last-lap charge for the win before settling for third.

It sounds like a worn-out cliché, a racer's mentality to explain a dangerous sport in the face of tragedy. Most of us mourn when tragedy strikes, even most professional athletes. They skip a game when there's death or serious illness in the family. Not professional racers. They race.

"I know everybody always says that," Burton adds, "but Jack is a racer and he cares about racing and that's what he wants us to do, and we're going to go off and do it with more excitement and more energy than we ever have, because doing well would mean a tremendous amount to Jack. We are all thinking about Jack, that's our biggest concern, but we also know that Jack would want us to go do the best we can, and that's what we're going to do."

So Roush Racing will go on while its owner recovers. And it will continue to win races and continue to contend for the 2002 championship.

When Rick Hendrick was battling leukemia and under house arrest in 1998, Jeff Gordon and his Hendrick Motorsports team turned in one of the best seasons in Winston Cup history, winning 13 races and a third championship.

Hendrick's team continued to succeed because he left it in good hands. So has Roush.

Led by Smith, an attorney and one of the smartest business minds in the sport, the business side of Roush Racing will continue to flourish.

The competitive side will be in the capable hands of Burton and Martin, two veteran drivers, along with experienced crew chiefs like Jimmy Fennig and Frankie Stoddard.

"Jack is a real hands-on car owner and he's there every week," Burton says. "He ain't going to be there for a while, so we've got to do it for him."

Says Smith: "Roush Racing is an organization that has many senior managers in engineering and fabulous race car drivers and managers and all of us have the understanding that we are to go forward and compete, which is what we're all prepared to do."

"Everybody in this company knows that Jack's personality is that he wants people to stand up and take control," Burton said. "He doesn't like people who just let something happen around them without doing something, so everybody on this team, especially in the upper management positions, are just going to have to stand up and do more than they are doing."

That effort will be led by Martin and Burton. Martin has been with Roush from the beginning. He has been knocked down and written off more than once in his career, and every time he has come back a winner.

He has 32 Winston Cup victories and has been a championship contender numerous times. As continues his own comeback at age 42, he will be there to help guide youngsters Busch and Kenseth as they stake their own championship claims.

Burton has won 17 races for Roush since 1997 and is one of the smartest, most determined drivers in Winston Cup racing. Like Roush, he is also a fighter and a leader, a guy you would want to take with you into a foxhole.

"Mark is our senior driver and we look to Mark to do things," Burton says. "I'm at the shop every day and they look to me to do things. Each one of us has a strength and we've got to do more of the things that we do well than we've ever done to take up for the slack that we are going to have for a while."

Says Martin: "All of us, when we climb in these race cars, and I can speak for every one of these guys, they didn't get here for being weak or scatter-focused. When we climb in those race cars, we will be taking care of business. And that's our commitment and we are as determined to do that, more determined to do that, than ever before to make sure that we show and prove, not only to Jack, but everyone else, that we can do that."

They will succeed. Because, like their boss, they are survivors.